Friday, October 11, 2013

$500,000 in GTA Online money is coming your way...

...if you've been playing (or trying to play) Grand Theft Auto Online since its launch, that is. If so, you're no doubt familiar with its troubles. Lost cash, lost player characters, lost cars and lost properties - which cost its players a lot of in-game money. Rockstar intends to make right by giving us all $500,000.00 in GTA Online money, which we can then use to re-buy all the crap we lost.

The cash will come in two quarter-million dollar installments that drop straight in to your GTA Online bank account, the first of which can be expected at the end of "this week" which I expect actually means next week, after a patch that will leave Rockstar confident that folks won't go and spend that free money on stuff that may randomly disappear. The rest will come in another quarter-million dollar lump towards the end of October.

Excuse me? Do you really think some digital cash is going to make this laughably catastrophic launch any less of a nightmare? Do you think we'll just forget about the dozens of hours we poured into GTA Online only to have it disappear?

Are we whores to be bought?
Well I sure am. This is fantastic! I'll be able to get a nice penthouse and a ten car garage, to begin building up my personal collection of sweet muscle cars (I've already got myself a new Sabre Turbo - the third one I had to find - so next up is a Gauntlet, and then I'll see where my heart takes me).

Given some of the recent technical issues during these first days of GTA Online, and now that things are starting to look much smoother (touch wood!), we are planning to provide a special stimulus package for all who have played or will play Grand Theft Auto Online this month. We will be dropping a cool half a million GTA$ in the GTA Online bank accounts of all players this month, starting as early as next week.

‘Don’t Spend It All in One Place!’

In order to keep the current worldwide in-game economy balanced, we will be providing this GTA$ to players via two deposits of $250,000. We will announce specific dates as soon as possible, but are currently hoping to be able to make the first deposit by the end of next week (after we’ve confirmed that issues causing game progress loss have been fixed) with the second installment to happen by the end of the month. For players who experienced cloud server errors, connection issues, and lost game progress and characters in these first days of GTA Online, we hope this GTA$ helps to facilitate a fresh start or makes your continued life in Los Santos and Blaine County extra sweet.

Below are a few more details on how it will work. Stay tuned for tips on how to make the most of GTA$ cash, info on ways and places to earn more cash fast, as well as updates on all the new GTA Online content additions we’re working on for this fall and beyond.

You must play or have played Grand Theft Auto Online at any time during the month of October 2013 in order to qualify for the GTA$500,000 deposit in your in-game bank account.

Players will first have to install a forthcoming GTAV title update which we expect to happen next week. That title update (1.04) is expected to fix the remaining instances of issues that have caused vehicle purchase loss and will also enable the functionality through which we’ll be providing this GTA$ stimulus cash to players.

We will announce at the Rockstar Newswire when each deposit is made.

Each of the two GTA$250,000 deposits will be made by Rockstar and should automatically appear in the in-game GTA Online bank accounts of eligible players. Beyond downloading the forthcoming title update mentioned above, there should not be any additional special action required by eligible players to redeem.

I logged in today after a week of keeping Online at arm's reach, and re-created my character for the third time. I still had twenty grand in my bank account, so that made things a tad easier - but for the most part I just wanted to toot around, look for my car (I settled for a Dominator until I found my Sabre Turbo) and stick up convenience stores.

After escaping from the cops off a highway (freeway getaways are always very difficult when there's no nearby mountain to climb) I paused the game and went outside for a cigarette. When I came back, a player was landing a helicopter in front of me.

When you're a GTA Online player, you're getting killed by other players all the time - it would've been no big loss, but one's immediate response is fight or flight.

I tensed and snatched up the controller, pulled my (pathetic little starter) pistol and swooped the sights up to the pilot.

It was my brother. Literally, my older brother.

We had some fun ^.^

When GTA Online works, it is... well, in the review I called it "stunning" and "hugely ambitious" - which it is. But perhaps that's not the best way to put it. When GTA Online is working, it's the first multiplayer game I've actually cared about since World of Warcraft.

CHANCE...

...is actually named David.

This is where I write about video games. Beyond the simple pleasure of it, I hope to use this place as a bit of a mental gym to re-develop my writing style - something I seem to have misplaced around the turn of the century.

It will also serve as a personal blog, but for the most part if you enjoy discussion of gaming news, independent reviews and pointless musings, you have come to precisely the right place.

It's my custom to do at least one post per day - but whether it ends up being ten posts of breaking news and a review, or one post complaining about how I have a tummy ache is not set in stone.